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Great (network) expectations

Generation Y employees in your workforce demand the best from your network. Here’s why you’d be smart to give them what they want.

Thanks to the demands of Generation Y, office infrastructures are changing drastically. In fact, the very concept of what an office is, is transforming. Digital connectivity means that many companies can now function via a ‘virtual workspace’, no matter where employees are located. With this connectivity, businesses can increase both productivity and customer satisfaction, without the need for face-to-face interaction.

In the eyes of Generation Y, not having this kind of connectivity is a nuisance, and could even be a hindrance to productivity and competitive advantage. As a result, making sure that this generation’s high expectations for connectivity and application performance are met tends to fall in the lap of the ICT department.

Network excellence isn’t a bonus — it’s a given.Delivering this high standard of performance compels ICT departments to find out what exactly their users demand. And then to meet those demands when implementing their latest ICT initiatives, such as cloud computing, information security and mobility.

Keeping users happy despite device overload.The survey found that the Generation Y workforce is vocal about its dissatisfaction with network performance overall. Ninety per cent of businesses acknowledge that they’ve received complaints from Generation Y users in the past, and roughly a third of businesses are getting such feedback on a regular basis.

Things only get more complicated by the fact that today’s employees work on multiple devices and expect mobility — a concern shared by almost half of all respondents. This point further speaks to the idea that ICT departments need to view their employees as customers — customers who demand a great user experience in terms of their interaction with the corporate network and the business applications that run on it.

Guaranteeing application performance.Aligning the network to these changing needs cannot simply be achieved by continual capacity upgrades. In fact, of those polled in the survey, almost two thirds agreed that in order to get the best out of a network, ICT needs to implement better network governance tools; not only to measure performance but also to predict potential problems.

The solution.With a governance approach to managing the user experience, ICT has visibility of individual applications on the network, as well as the ability to prioritise the most critical ones as necessary.

To truly guarantee application performance, businesses should also consider a dynamic hybrid WAN. By combining the enterprise MPLS with lower cost broadband connections, non-critical traffic can travel over the internet. This satisfies the application performance requirements of employees, while meeting the cost reductions demanded by business.

With Generation Y representing an increasing share of the workforce, organisations simply can’t afford for their workforce, or their critical applications, to underperform.